Healthy Copycat Recipes for Your Favorite Creamy Soups

Got leftover cooked chicken or turkey? Cook up a pot of soup! This recipe is a healthier twist on a classic creamy turkey and wild rice soup that hails from Minnesota. Serve with a crisp romaine salad and whole-grain bread.

In this healthy broccoli-Cheddar-chicken chowder recipe, heavy cream is replaced with milk and flour-thickened chicken broth and we keep sodium amounts reasonable with lower-sodium broth. By making your own homemade creamy broccoli, Cheddar and chicken chowder, you'll save up to 300 calories, 20 grams of saturated fat and 500 milligrams of sodium per serving compared to many store-bought or restaurant chowders.

Mulligatawny, which literally means “pepper water,” is an English interpretation of an Indian dish. It has seemingly limitless versions, but most have curry and a bit of chicken. We've added tart Granny Smith apples, plenty of spice and a touch of coconut milk.

It's hard to believe how rich and creamy this potato-leek soup is even though there's not a drop of cream in it. Croutons topped with anchovy, olives and leek are a crunchy, savory foil to the soup. But skip them if you like and incorporate all the cooked leeks into the soup instead.

This sophisticated take on creamy mushroom soup is rich with earthy porcini mushrooms and has the added goodness of whole-grain barley.

In this healthy clam chowder recipe, traditional heavy cream is replaced with milk and flour-thickened clam juice and we keep sodium amounts reasonable with lower-sodium clam juice instead of higher-sodium broths. By making your own creamy clam chowder, you can save up to 300 calories, 20 grams of saturated fat and 500 milligrams of sodium per serving compared to many store-bought or restaurant chowders.

Our light version of classic crab bisque gets its creaminess from a combination of low-fat milk plus pureed vegetables and potatoes. The tangy, chunky relish provides a textural and flavor contrast to the smoky, rich-tasting bisque. Serve with crusty whole-grain rolls and some extra wedges of lime for squeezing.

The flavor of this salmon chowder is greatly enhanced by adding either fresh dill or dried tarragon: each herb lends its own distinctively different and appealing character to the soup. Even if you don't keep instant mashed potatoes in your pantry, it's worth picking some up for this soup. They give the soup a thick, chowder texture without any heavy cream or butter. Leftover mashed potatoes work too, but give a slightly less-velvety texture. Recipe by Nancy Baggett for EatingWell.

Our cheese- and beer-lover's potato soup has only a fraction of the fat and sodium of a traditional recipe. We use low-fat milk and only a little oil and keep the flavor strong with zesty, sharp Cheddar cheese. Precooked diced potatoes, which you can get at many supermarkets, keep this recipe super speedy. Regular diced red potatoes also work--you'll just need to increase the cooking time.